About the nurse? That riled him more than anything else. "How was it he was let out without his nurse?" That's what Maitland had said. As he thought of that speech Lord Ticehurst kicked out against the splashboard in front of him, startled the roans into a gallop, and woke the groom from an elysian dream of eating boiled beans and bacon in the back-parlour of a public-house which was his own. And when he had asked if Gilbert knew about the chaff that was going on, Maitland said he did, and, more than that, had started it and laughed at it himself. Could that be true? He could scarcely think that; he had been doosid kind to old Gil, and doosid fond of him, and done all sorts of things for him one way or the other, and he did not believe old Gil would go against him in that way. Fellows are always talking about ingratitude and that kind of thing, but he did not think anyone would be such a thorough-paced duffer as to go in against a fellow who had shown him nothing but kindness ever since he had known him. Ever since he had known him? Well, that was not so long ago, when he came to think about it, but it seemed like his whole life. He thought with an odd kind of incredulous wonder on that portion of his life anterior to his acquaintance with Gilbert Lloyd. The Plater-Dobbs _régime_ seemed like a dream. He was a vulgar old cad, the Plater, but he would not have played double, he would not have allowed any of the fellows to chaff. No fellows had ever been allowed to chaff him, even at Eton--Eton, hey presto! At that reminiscence the clouds rolled away, and scenes of bygone time and the actors in them, unthought of for years, rose before the young man's mind. Some of those fellows who had been with him at Eton, and were now doing so well and making such stir in the world--Brackenbury, who had made such a hit in the House, and who, everybody said, would be A1 some of these days; and Graves, who had written a devilish clever book about something; and Hammond, who was under-secretary in one of those office-places down at Whitehall, and who the newspapers said was a rising man, and all that. Lord! he recollected when he first went to Eton, his old governor took him, and a crowd there was when they buried his governor in the family-vault at Etchingham! He recollected Lord Tantallon the Premier standing at the foot of the grave after the service, and looking in, with the tears running down his face. No end of official swells came down to see the last of their old colleague. He recollected seeing the great black-marble top of the tomb, which had been taken off, lying on its side among the weeds; and he remembered the smell of the newly-turned earth, and the trodden turf, and he could see just as plainly as on the day itself the men from the London newspapers bending over to read the inscription on the coffin. Poor old governor! he was a clever fellow, and was awfully respectable and respected. He would not think